VATAN representatives visit FUEN Brussels and raise awareness in the European Parliament

On 1 October, representatives of the Public Organisation of Meskhetian Turks “VATAN”, a FUEN member organisation and member of the Working Group of Turkic Minorities/Communities (TAG), visited the FUEN office in Brussels. The talks focused on the long-standing challenges of the Meskhetian Turks, who were deported from Georgia in 1944 by order of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and have since lived dispersed across nine countries on three continents. Despite international recognition of their right to return, they continue to face obstacles in resettling in their ancestral homeland.

The visit followed a conference in the European Parliament on 30 September entitled “Georgia’s Euro-Integration: The Meskhetian Turks Question as a Benchmark for EU Standards Compliance”. The event was hosted by MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew Europe, Bulgaria) and organised by VATAN as part of their awareness-raising activities in Brussels. It highlighted that, although Georgia adopted a repatriation law in 2007, the vast majority of applications submitted by Meskhetian Turks have been rejected, leaving the community without a practical path to return.

At the European Parliament, VATAN representatives Fuad Pepinov and Ansar Usmanov underlined that the law functions in practice as a “return prevention law”. They stressed that supranational organisations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the OSCE have repeatedly confirmed Georgia’s shortcomings, yet their recommendations have largely been ignored. VATAN therefore called on Georgia to take the issue seriously within its EU accession process and to recognise the Meskhetian Turks as victims whose rights must be restored.

Contributions from FUEN experts at the event provided a wider European perspective: FUEN Scientific Consultant Dr Zora Popova highlighted that the challenges of the Meskhetian Turks resemble unresolved cases in the Western Balkans. She underlined that EU accession instruments, combined with the pre-accession funds Georgia already receives, could be used to strengthen minority rights. To achieve concrete progress, she said, political will, a functioning legal framework and a roadmap backed by EU resources are needed.

FUEN Brussels Office Policy Advisor Johan Häggman complemented this view by pointing out the institutional limitations. He explained that EU treaties contain no explicit basis for minority rights, and that while the Lisbon Treaty gave the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding force, its scope remains limited to EU law. Minority and language policies stay within Member State competences, which restricts EU action mostly to awareness-raising, small-scale funding and research. This, Häggman noted, leaves communities such as the Meskhetian Turks without broader political or financial support at EU level.